mslz22

I'll start taking orders for the standard one next week or so. I got so busy in the month leading up to Wonderfest it was hard to get to these. I actually have like 3 or 4 cast up with the exception of the rotocast head. I can run those off pretty quick. I still am going to tackle the heavy missile carriers soon as I can. I may need to do a paint master on a model for the upcoming Comic Con in San Diego, something from a galaxy far, far away. Those always need to bump other projects but we will see if it gets to me in time for me to even paint. thanks mike

I truly hope this actually makes it into production.

Thanks, will start taking orders for this after the kids school vacation. About a week and a half. Heavy missile carrier version will be coming a couple weeks later, combo price will be offered for more than one.

Almost done

Thanks, without getting too deep, there is a couple of things going on with the overall design and the compromises and artistic license I took when doing the build. I'm happy to list them when i get a minute. But in regard to the toe, there are 2 things going on. First is that it's a copy of the toe in the line art instead of the box animations. I have cherry picked from the line art and animation to get the pattern. See pic below. The other and bigger issue as to why it has none of the "gasket" parts is that the kit is pose able. It has ball joints at the hips and at the feet, so while it still need to be built static, you have the option of picking a pose. Because of that the toe needs to be cast as a separate part and adjusted to the pose you pick. it's also limited a bit in it's size in how it needs to tuck under the toe cover. A modeler could add the gasket parts with some apoxy sculpt very easily if they wanted that effect.

test build in progress

I made an offer but did not hear back from him, I guess someone else made him a better offer. Either way i will still be offering this, John's are fantastic, which is why i would have purchased the patterns given the chance, but these are different enough to justify a release. Like I have stated these are a bit bigger and very different in parts breakdown. I am doing some painting on it today and it's really nice to have minimal tape work. These will not be able to have an interior or pilot with the rotocast head, so John's are the way to go if you want that.

In the 120 range i hope. It does not have the interior like the Capt's but it still has a lot of parts since so much of it is broken down for ease of painting. The rotocasting can be a PITA sometimes on something like this too so i have to account for loss on that part. I thought about splitting up the head, but it's sooooo nice to not have to do joining and seam work on the head, well the mold seam but that is around the edges and not as bad as the seam work like that on the IMAI kit, split down the middle.

Oh man, can't believe how fast time goes by. Snow day with the kids so I took this first casting out to work on. I would like to make these available in mid april. Just need to to warm up enough for rotocasting the head.

Yep they are HUGE. this is still in the works with a full remold and hopefully weapon pack for May/June ish time frame. Also getting ready to re release the 1/48 Regult with some improvements/new molds. thanks mike

I have the 2 zentran figures molds and his 1/72nd Glaug pod. Both have good sets of molds right now.

I have the patterns and have made new molds for the soldier and for Kajim standing figures. PM me if your interested in one.

Hey Guys, yes the Launch arm is still available. I am casting like a crazy person right now so i can take some time off from casting this winter (and hopefully finish the super armor on the 1/24 valk). PM me if you want a launch arm, i plan on casting until like Thanksgiving time. mike

Its the Capt's, I purchased the pattern from him a few years ago. If anyone needs one of those i have a couple cast up. mike

No total scratchbuild.

Me

Both, my follow up post to this mentioned that i checked Macross Manual, but have no idea where they got their "over 41 meters" for the length I mention in the post that i have no definitive #'s, just doing kind of a fun exercise in trying to figure it out. When i made the pattern for the 1/72nd i used the 1/144 Yellow Sub kit as reference. I wound up with barrels to butt measurement of just over 22 inches. If you take the Macross Manual measurement of 41 meters give or take then 1/72nd should actually be just over 22 inches. I think I measured the Hi Metal at like 15.5 inches with those barrels, so really like 1/104 if your getting super technical by what I figured, Again, just a fun thought exercise more than anything else. The official numbers and the line art don't seem to line up all that precisely anyway.

Oh, i just looked back at Macross Manual, and it says over 41 Meters long. So in 1/72nd it would be about 22.4 inches long, which my kit is from the barrel to the back of the body. The Hi Metal is 15.5 so it looks like its just about 1/104 scale if you want to get very technical and believe the Macross Manual at all.

I am actually getting 1/110. Here is a pic with my 1/72nd scale body. My 72nd scale kit has a body length of 13 inches. The Hi Metal 8.5 inches. When you convert 13 inches in 72nd scale to 8.5 inches it converts to 1/110 scale. I will say that my measurements to get 1/72nd when i was patterning the kit was to double the size of the old 1/144 Yellow sub kit. So who knows if that was right, there is a pic of the leg with a 1/72nd scale valk. And one with a 1/60 valk just for comparison. If my kit was closer to 1/60 then the Hi Metal would be like 1/90 ish.

Just got the Hi Metal and just for fun here is a pic with the 1/72nd. I like some of the stuff they did, their interpretation of it, if i ever do a 1/60 or a 1/48 I would want to take some inspiration from this Hi Metal one for sure. The basis for a lot of my 1/72nd kit was the 1/144 Yellow sub kit, the Hi Metal has some much better defined details that i would love a crack at.

Yes, the buying parts thru Jerry's website was so long ago i used to have the packages sent to my parents house. I was young and poor so the parts went to a more secure location than my apartment. So anyone with 1/55 customs should feel free to post here, even old pics of Jungs stuff that may not be readily available on the web are welcome, or old pics of your own stuff. I was able to recover a bunch of the Jung custom pics using the Wayback machine but feel free to post away. I was not really able to get any of Rosario's pics

Hey Rob, thanks for the comments. It's good to see you back here. I have a handful of those 1J heads you did years ago, I think i got them from Jerry's site if i remember right? I picked up a few 2nd hand but I think the first few i got from Jerry's VF1X site, he sold them i the states right? Either way they are cool and very nostalgic. I plan to do my 3 1J's with them. Please feel free to post anything you want 1/55 in this thread, i would love to see what your up to. thanks mike

Kakizaki gets the first clear cast canopy.

If I remember right it also had to do with Yamato, at the time Graham was talking with them sometimes and they were not happy about MW being a safe haven for recast stuff, both WFest exclusives and other odds and ends. It's crazy to think that well respected members would organize casting runs of Wfest kits, it was just the wild west in some ways. I don't think anyone had any other intention other than to get MW members stuff they wanted, with sites like E2046 and Hobbyfan around I did not really understand that "recasting" was a bad thing until i started to visit other sites like Starshipmodeler or RPF. I was so naive. In the case of 1/55 stuff it seems like for the customs there was really no other choice at the time but to use some cast parts on them. In regard to the 3D printed stuff, I personally think part of the charm of the 1/55 at this point is the "hokiness" or home grown look to some of the mods.